


Dying Embers

by theblitz



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gendry-centric, Past Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Post Season 8, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblitz/pseuds/theblitz
Summary: It is in the dying embers that Gendry can best recall the fading memories of his mother. She was a woman who loved songs and stories; an expectation Gendry tried to carry forward in his life. Now that he is Lord of Storm's End that goal feels all the more real and hurting.Gendry's perspective post-season 8 in his new role of Lord Paramount.





	Dying Embers

**Author's Note:**

> Just a heads up, very little Gendry/Arya in this. Totally his POV while she's out at sea. ALSO this is my first publish work of fanfic, so any constructive criticism is appreciated. Thanks in advance for reading.

It is in the dying embers of the midnights in his room or in the morning’s forge that Gendry most vividly remembers his mother. She was a young woman, likely no older than he is now when she passed on. She had soft hands and a soothing whisper that would find him in the darkness of their room above the alehouse. After a long day of work, the smell of sweat and yeast strong on her skin, she would pull him close in the small bed they shared. Whenever she crept into the room she would poke at the fire before coming to bed. He remembered a kiss to his forehead, the whisper of her love, and the comforting warmth of her arms. It was easy to fall back asleep when surrounded by such peace. 

Some nights though, when the moon was a clear bright light in the sky above, she would pull him into her lap and prop them up. They would sit up in bed, nestled close, leaning up against the wall right across from the fireplace. She would brush shaggy hair from his forehead, give a light laugh, and launch into a story of far stretching proportions. Sometimes, despite his best childhood efforts, Gendry would fall asleep during the tales, missing the ending only to have to beg for a shortened version the next morning as she dressed for work. She’d give him the same light laugh as she pulling her hair up into a pile upon her head and say nothing of the tales until another bright moon night.

The stories she told were of people long ago. The adventures of Bran the Builder or the dragons that had once crossed the Narrow Sea. Of women dressing as men to save their towns from frightful figures or love stories that grew between honourable knights and beautiful ladies, lasting years and separation and strife. They were wonderful legends but only just that, his mother would say at the end. A small reminder before Gendry would fall away into a dreamland so much more colourful than the dusty room above the alehouse.

These days he could hardly remember her face, twenty years on since her sudden death. That time of quiet happiness had slipped through his then small hands and it was only recently he had realized they were unlikely to ever come again. He still held onto those stories with a firm grip though. Just as he did right after she died, as he worked through his apprenticeship, and all the hard times he had faced in the years since. In the dungeons of Dragonstone it was those same stories that kept him afloat, the “what-if”s and “what-could-be”s that felt foolish if spoke aloud. Never would he speak it into the world, seeing as there was no one to talk to in the first place. 

He had somehow escaped what was a certain death and was given another opportunity at life. In this apparent miracle Gendry vowed to live as his mother would want him to; with a life worthy of songs and stories. Rushing through to find a suitable story book ending to each day, Gendry found himself charging into a war like he was some kind of hero. The kind of man who would make his mother’s eyes shine as she looked into the distance and spoke of their bravery.

He had seen North of the Wall. He spoke with monarchs and had seen dragons breathe fire upon fleets of men. He was part of a crew of rowdy men, jokesters and fighters and leaders. The kind of men who roamed the countryside to steal from the rich and give to the poor. The kind of men who had voices at the table and spoke in the name of justice, of honour. It was a journey into manhood and on the other side Gendry found himself falling into the title of war hero and lordship. The bastard of Flea Bottom rising to be worth something more; he had done as he had set out to do. His mother had opened his heart to the dreaminess of life and somehow he had been able to live up to the valor of her tales.

It was an undeserved luck and the stupid strangeness of life that caused Gendry to be in his current position: a lord. And a lord paramount at that. Somehow no one thought to reevaluate the decisions of an apparent mad woman, so now he slept on sheets of soft and was capable of getting the finest steel money could buy. He would wake to a list of expectations and the people who he was meant to meet about said expectations. There was people looking at him for guidance and reassurance- something no one had ever asked of him beyond the walls of the smithy.

It felt like he was in a foreign land. Surely someone would steal away his title with a knife to his back or for a perceived slight of great offence. Gendry wrote often to Davos in King’s Landing, stating his fears and begging for the man to come and take the lordship himself. Davos wrote back every time, his humour tingeing every reassurance and making Gendry feel like a delusional fool until he finished the letter. Then the fear would creep in again. In no time at all Gendry was gushing all his worries down onto paper, slipping them on a raven’s ankle, and watching the creature take flight. 

In his day to day, there was a council of people ready to help him and more than enough people willing to give their opinions otherwise. He tried to know the lives of the people close to him merely by proximity and some of the small details of their life. Gendry knew of his valet’s family and the small affairs going on within the kitchen. He spoke often with the smith on staff of what needed fixing. The stable master helping him get a better grip on horse riding. He had a maester who grew up in Dorne and was an unendingly helpful source of information about nearly everything Gendry could ever want to know. In all his decisions he tried to base them on the principles laid out by the other leaders he had known personally; to be kind in the face of cruelty. Being strong, but merciful was a balancing act that the Stormlands seemed to have never seen before. The novelty of him went beyond just being a bastard lord.

In his novelty, Gendry still tried to pursue the perception of those happy days. If he could continue to build a life worthy of songs, maybe they would come to fruition. So he wrote to his bannermen, practicing letters with the maester and allowing the fellow to review all the correspondence going in or out of the keep. He went to all the meetings and listened to those who spoke, both the affirmations and the grievances. The ideas of the small folk even fell into his lap personally rather than falling to the wayside like an unwanted pup. He wrote to the Night’s Watch, showing his support with men and weapons. He kept on easy terms with the Queen of the North and his regular letters to Davos kept him in the loop of the Six Kingdoms. 

The only complaint the songs and his council would have would be his lack of a lady wife. Even a exotic paramour to warm his bed and the ears in whisper would be a degree of satisfying. At nearly every official meeting the council would bring up eligible brides of bannermen or from nearby lands in the Reach or Dorne. It was once even lofted that he make a play for Queen Stark given their perceived history. It took a lot of will to not spit his wine across the table when it was brought up, but mercifully Maester Alleras shutdown the suggestion for being “preposterous”. There was a new reason for him taking a wife every meeting; giving him an heir and stability in the Stormlands being obvious favourites. Giving the smallfolk something to cheer about; to make him less melancholy with a pretty wife and to prove his virility as a man. At the last meeting someone thought bringing up Renly and his own preferences was worth speaking time. Every meeting he would brush them off good naturedly with a smile that was beginning to feel more political all the time. Gendry wanted to please people to the best of his abilities, but that was just one area where he fell short. 

It was a decision he constantly went back and forth over. Truly it was. To either sit and wait- in pursuit of the masochistic hope that would plague him in times of doubt- or to appease his people and take any suitable wife. Davos would say how a family could settle a man, bringing joy and sadness in equal measure. Maester Alleras spoke of what was to come after them and the kind of legacy they should leave behind. These were ideas that came to ground him in the reality of his situation. Gendry had never considered what a family could look like for him before becoming a lord. The idea of being a husband and a father felt unattainable when one was a bastard of no standing. Even as a teen when Arya had brought up the idea of the two being family it was merely a far flung attempt at keeping him close when she had nothing else (in bitter reflection of those times he’d remember that he had nothing else then either).

Since the dawn after the Long Night it has been his deepest desire to hold Arya close to him, the threat of melting into one another very real, and call her his wife. To see her wake beside him. To revel in her joys alongside. To be the rock she needed and the home she wanted. Maybe it was the childhood songs sung or the late night tales of long lasting, far-reaching love, but a desperate part of him wanted to wait. If given an opportunity to fully indulge, it would be little effort to waste days staring longingly into Storm’s Bay. But these were merely fantasies to be buried deep within his heart, never mentioned again. Now it was simply his mission to dodge all attempts of being attached to a wife like the fool- it would be a disappointment if the small folks’ songs thought otherwise of his efforts. 

To say that he had never thought there would be a lady love though would be dismissive. Gendry had lofted the idea for a day; between falling into sacks of grain with Arya and being lifted from bent knee in the sweetest kiss, there was a hallow hope. He fought with a purpose when facing an army of the dead. Sure love had brought with it a fear not known before, but how could he give up when there was so much else to look forward to. Even now, he would simply settle to live in the same world were Arya breathed. The foolishness of youth had created a landscape where he and she could live in a bubble. The warmth in his heart, a candle glowing hot and bright, grew when Daenerys gave him a title and a proper last name. Rather than a room in the walls of Winterfell, there was a castle the two could rule and explore to their hearts’ content. A home filled with a family. A proper name and standing worthy of Arya. She could have leave of everything; Gendry would know no differently anyways.

His mind now ran wild with his yearning in the darkness of his room. During the daylight it was easy to dismiss all his feeling without examining them; he was a busy man with many decisions to make and many things to learn. But if given the opportunity for his mind to wander it always brought him to the same place: him on bended knee with Arya’s lips against his own. He really thought that they could be the family she had once spoken of. It still ripped through him like a dull blade and he could only let out a cruel laugh in self deprecation. He wouldn’t cry. Not when he still lived and breathed. Not when he had a castle and bannermen and a soft bed to sleep in. The paths had been chosen and Gendry was now Lord Barartheon. A lord could not weep for his own troubles while his people starved. 

In the morning Gendry would wake early, before the sun even rose. He would dress himself, slip down to the forge to relight the fires from the remaining embers and work in silence. There, in between the hot fires and the solid anvils, he would beat away his hurt until it was something new. Another weapon or piece of armour to be tossed away in the apparent heirloom chest he had shoved in the corner of a station claimed as his. He knew if any of the other smiths cared to look in the chest marked with scenes of a raging sea and the ravenous creatures within it that his heart would be on full display. Pieces of metal moulded for a slight body, with shorter legs than most soldiers. Swords thinner and shorter than most regulation pieces. The wolves and stags in pairs that were painstakingly embedded into the steel incriminated him further. Worst than all this was the poor attempts at silversmithing chucked across the bottom in fits of anger in their varying degrees of roundness. The self defeating rage fading, Gendry would finally look up to see the coming daylight and realize he was chasing a ghost.

But that was a cycle to be repeated at another time. For now Gendry turned over in his featherbed, away from the dying embers, and tried to make peace with the unwritten songs.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please let me know. If you didn't, tell me why :) I may continue this if any single person gives a damn about this work.


End file.
